“Damica? They’re coming this weekend.
“I think the hawk is a good—
“What?
“Umm, I think Saturday.
“Maybe some cranberry juice.
“Okay.
“Okay. See you soon.
“Yup. Bye.”
Norma hangs up and her heart snags. The sign seems less certain now. The bird is gone, and Norma wishes she’d done things differently. Take a bit of good news and Norma will always spread it out thin over the telephone lines, until all she has left is a small smudge, a quickly fading memory of the color yellow and the white-speckled feathers.
There’s a few chat strings streaming in front of her: HSGs, D&Cs, OPKs, and BBTs. There is also a box you can click to send someone who is TTC some Baby Dust. It’s a virtual gift that arrives over e-mail. Norma already sent herself some a couple of months ago. Storks, smiley faces, pink and blue bits of electronic confetti. It didn’t work. Do cancer websites have asinine toys like that? Chemo dust to sprinkle for a cure?
She looks away from her computer again and there in the backyard is a BMX bicycle with fluorescent-green tires, one wheel spinning slowly in the breeze. Norma steps out the back slider barefoot, her toes in the warm grass. No one’s there. She looks up through the branches of the sycamore tree. Nothing. Norma rights her neck.
The woman with the addict eyes stares at Norma. She’s no more than two narrow feet away. She looks like she’s hungry.
“You scared me.” Norma keeps her voice calm and friendly the way one might with a cruel dog.
Norma sees now that the woman is filthy. Tiny capillary lines of sweaty grit swoop across her neck like a tidal shore. Her fingernails are rimmed with dirt as if she crawled out of a grave. There’s a large dark birthmark on the woman’s collarbone. It could be the mother ship, the epicenter of all this dirt. The woman is missing a side tooth, a dark hole that sucks in all of Norma’s attention.
There is a power to her filth that keeps Norma from screaming or calling the cops. There’s power in the woman’s lacy black tank top, in her cutoff corduroys and oversized camouflage coat.
“You scared me,” Norma repeats herself. The woman is breathing heavily. “Can I help you with something?”
“What’s your name again?” the woman asks, as if Norma had already volunteered this information.
Hypnotized by the missing tooth, Norma answers. “Norma. What’s yours?”
“Huh. Norma.”
“Yes. What’s your name?”
“Norma. Are you deaf?”
“That’s my name.”
“Well. It’s my name also.”
The woman cracks her knuckles. She kicks at something underfoot. A starling titters from a tree and Norma wonders why the camo coat. Norma doesn’t believe her. “I’ve never met another Norma in my life.”
“I’m an old friend of Ted’s. Can I get something to drink?” Dirty Norma asks. “I’ve been riding my bike.”
Norma considers offering her the garden hose until she remembers her manners. “Yes, of course,” Norma says. “A glass of water.”
“Got any soda?” She follows Norma inside the sliding back door.
“A soda.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. All right,” Norma says. “A soda.” They file into the kitchen. Norma doesn’t keep soda in the fridge but she’s got a can in the pantry. “You live around here?” Norma wonders about the guard, how she got past.
“No. You like it?”
“There’s a lot of rules. We’re not going to stay here forever.”
“What rules?”
“You’re not allowed to have more than two trees in your yard.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I know.”
“So then why do you do it?” Dirty Norma asks. “Why don’t you just start planting lots of trees? What are they going to do? Come dig them up? Take away your trees?”
Norma has been standing in the pantry door, looking into the darkness for a can of soda. She finds one and closes the door. She crosses the kitchen and hands her the can and a glass of ice. Dirty Norma’s bare toes are filthy in their flip-flops. They hold the remnants of some dark purple nail polish. Norma stares at these toes against the beige and cream linoleum until she hears the pop of the can. There is the hiss of the bubbles. There are the gulping breaths of air as Dirty Norma swallows the entire soda without ever putting it on ice. She hands Norma the can, the cold, unused glass. Dirty Norma belches and Norma can smell the corn syrup on her breath.
“Why don’t I give Ted a call?”
“Go right ahead.”
So Norma does, taking the cordless into the dining room, out of earshot.
“Hi. So, there’s a friend of yours here.
“Uhh, Norma.
“Yeah weird, right?”
Norma lowers her voice to a dead whisper. “How do you know her?
“But.
“I see.
“Fine, tell me later.”
When she hangs up, Dirty Norma is no longer standing in the kitchen. Norma hears the television in the living room. Dirty Norma has made herself at home. She’s watching the end of a talk show. The topic is BULLIES. Norma stands behind her, staring at the woman’s head. Her hair is matted with grease. Dirty Norma turns. “Hope you don’t mind I turned on the tube.”
“Make yourself at home,” Norma says. “Ted’ll be here soon.”
Dirty Norma points her index finger at Norma, a gun, a finger parting the hedge. You’re lonely. Just like me. “So, you want to have a baby,” she says. Dirty Norma jerks her chin toward the computer screen. The monitor’s been shaken awake, someone’s hand on the mouse.
And Norma nods her head yes. This woman does not seem to be the sort who might say, Oh, I just know it’s going to work out for you soon! So Norma decides to tell her about it. She’s trying to formulate words that explain what her life without a baby feels like, but none of the words are right. It hurts. It’s unjust. That sounds dumb. Teenagers are locking their newborns in broom closets. Also dumb. Infertility is death doled out in tiny, monthly doses. The clock on the microwave flashes 12:11, as if it’s counting down.
“That’s kind of like the trouble I’ve got,” Dirty Norma says.
And Norma stops wondering what this woman is doing here. The universe works in mysterious ways. First the hawk, then the other Norma. Norma’s face opens wide, her arms, her heart. “You can’t get pregnant either? Oh, Norma. Oh. It sucks, right? It’s awful. And think of all those years you tried to not have a baby, right? And the—”
“No.” Dirty Norma smiles slightly. Screech goes the world. “I need to get unpregnant.”
“Unpregnant.” Norma’s dry lips stick together.
“Yeah. I thought Ted could help me.”
“Ted?”
“Yeah.”
“How?”
“I need some money.”
“Oh.”
“Ted’s my brother.”
The air has fled Norma’s lungs. Even this meth-head disaster of a human being can get pregnant. There is frozen, hardened steel in Norma’s veins. Unwanted cells divide and multiply in Dirty Norma’s belly. Norma backs away, fearing a fog of violence. Norma imagines blood, clawing the sides of her thighs as she leaves. “There’s more soda if you want.”